Supporting Exchange Alumni

Dr. Les Joynes (US)

Mentor and NYU certified Coach. Fulbright and Fulbright US Public Diplomacy Awards (Mongolia, India, Sri Lanka, China)

As an Exchange Alumnus and Professional Mentor, my objective is to support our future exchange scholars and alumni before, during and after their programs.

Cultural exchange is our most vital bridge to building mutual understanding, and I am committed to making it accessible, impactful, and transformative for all.

Hi, I’m Les, a New York-based cultural exchange scholar specialized in cross-cultural coaching and mentoring. Originally from Santa Barbara, California and then moving to Brussels to lead projects worldwide, my journey in public diplomacy has been shaped by experiences across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia since 1983. I am committed to building connections and have focused my career on fostering productive international relations through cultural exchange.

Most recently, I was recipient of the 2022 Fulbright-Nehru Professional and Academic Excellence Award, serving as a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in New Delhi. This experience was a pivotal opportunity to explore frameworks that support mutual understanding across cultures, building collaborations with major Indian cultural institutions, universities, and museums. My work extended to Sri Lanka, supported by an SCA-RTP regional grant, where I conducted workshops on multicultural collaboration in the arts, and to Taiwan in 2023, where, through introductions from the American Institute in Taiwan, I lectured on international exchange and the Fulbright Program.

1:1 Mentor for Exchange Alumni

As an Exchange Mentor, I support scholars across every phase of their research and community-impact journey—from pre-departure to cultural adaptation, research development, and re-entry integration.

My mentorship approach is informed by:

• Strategic expertise from leading international collaborations with global clients such as Du Pont, 3M, and General Electric.

• Intercultural fluency, with advanced degrees in both management and the arts, and professional proficiency in French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Mandarin.

• Field experience from Fulbright and global initiatives across Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

• Commitment to building inclusive leadership through public diplomacy

Research shows that over 90% of exchange scholars face challenges in cultural adjustment, research momentum, and re-entry. I provide monthly coaching sessions and ongoing strategic support to address these realities, ensuring scholars feel seen, supported, and prepared to lead.

Currently a Columbia Research Scholar in Coaching in Education, I’ve designed mentoring frameworks for exchange scholars and launched youth mentorship and coaching programs on three continents. My role as an Exchange Mentor is to empower scholars not just to adapt—but to expand, connect, and fully realize the transformative potential of their international experience.

Service to Boards and Committees

• Board Director for the College Art Association (CAA), New York (2025-2028)

• Institute for International Education (IIE) Fulbright NSC Reviewer (2024-2027)

• During Fulbright advised Gandhi Institute of Management and Technology on Curriculum Design (2022)

• Initiated India’s first Tribal Mentorship Program to serve rural communities across Nagaland (2022)

• Executive Editorial Committee, ProjectAnywhere, Journal at University of Melbourne, Australia (2015-2020)

• Executive Board Member, Charity for Children's healthcare, New York

• Grant Selection Committee for CEC Artslink Artist Selection (Artists from former USSR bloc countries)

• Grant Selection Committee for CEC Artslink Arts Administrators (Curators and Museum Administrators)

• Grant Selection Committee Harlems Artist Alliance, New York

• Grant Selection Committee for Nordic Artists Center, Dalsasen, Norway

• Chair, Youth Mental Health Committee, Highland Institute, Kohima, Nagaland, India

• Chapter Chair, Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals, New York

• Art and Anthropology Committee, Royal Anthropological Institute, London

• Anthropology and Environment Committee, Royal Anthropological Institute, London

• Museum Committee, College Arts Association, New York

• International Committee College Arts Association, New York

Selected Papers and Publications and Studies Arts and Culture

2025 Joynes and Drake, The Contribution of New Knowledge in Graduate Coaching Education, Finding University Press, 2025

2023 Joynes, L The Slipperiness of Memory in the Post Soviet, University of Indiana.

2020 Tohoku: Reflections on Memory and Disaster, Chithravathi (Magazine) Kerala, 2022.

2020 Review of Reclaiming Artists Research, Journal for Artistic Research, London (2020)

2019 Interfacing Technology with Site” ISEA International Symposium of Electronic Art, Gwangju, South Korea

2018 New Institutional Models: China’s Cultural Landscape by Mid-Century, Long Museum, Shanghai, China

2018 Going Beyond: Art as Adventure (2018) O’Neill, R and Werner, J (eds.), Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars.

2015 Anywhere v.1. (2015), Melbourne, Australia: University of Melbourne and Parsons School of Art, Media and Technology, New York.

2015 Inside Out Art Museum, New York: LeRoy Neiman Foundation [catalogue].

2014 Art and Research at the Outermost Limits of Site Specificity, Newcastle, Australia: University of Newcastle

2011 Octopus, Journal for Visual Culture. Irvine: University of California, Irvine, US

2008 Bauhaus-Dessau, Bühnenstudios der Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau [Internet], Germany

1999 “Some Say the Did, Some Say they Didn’t,” Art in America, New York

1997 The New Pathetic: Art in London, Springer, Vienna Austria

About Les: Les Joynes is an internationally recognized artist, scholar, and mentor with over three decades of global experience across cultural diplomacy, education, and organizational strategy. An American citizen, Les has lived and worked extensively across Europe and Asia, including long-term residencies in France, Belgium, Germany, the UK, Japan, and India.

Les holds an MBA from California State Polytechnic University, an M.Sc. in International Management from Boston University and the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB), and earned a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Art, Environment and Technology at Leeds Metropolitan University (UK). He completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA), University of São Paulo (Brazil), where his research focused on intercultural collaboration. A former Monbukagakusho (Monbusho) Scholar in Japan, Les received his Master of Fine Art from Musashino Art University in Tokyo and was Taiwan Ministry of Education Huayu Scholar at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan.

He has served as Professor of Record at Renmin University in Beijing and as Visiting Professor at the School of Arts, Peking University, where he taught courses on American art history and cross-cultural collaboration. He has lectured widely at institutions including the University of Cambridge, University of the Arts London (UAL), Columbia University, and leading art and cultural institutions in Sri Lanka, India, Mongolia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Brazil.

Currently based in New York City, Les is a Research Scholar in Coaching in Education at Columbia University, where he coaches MBA students, MFA candidates, and tech entrepreneurs at the Columbia Startup Lab. He also serves as a mentor and coach for global exchange alumni, offering one-on-one guidance, group sessions, and workshops that support re-entry, leadership development, and intercultural collaboration.